1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a control over access to a Device Management (DM) tree of a DM client and, more particularly, to an access control technique allowing a DM client to create a secure area therein, store a DM tree in the secure area, acquire a password from a server and access the DM tree by using the password.
2. Description of the Related Art
As mobile devices and related application services proliferate and mobile device functions increase in complexity, the current mobile communication environment has incurred some difficulty in developing mobile devices and application services to meet network operators' policy, end-users' demand and variations in a network environment. DM technology allows the network operator to effectively set up or control the end-users' device over the air.
A representative DM technology is Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DM, which allows a management of firmware, software and parameters of a mobile device by means of a DM protocol. In such DM technologies, a main agent managing mobile devices is normally referred to as a DM server, and a target of being managed such as a mobile device is referred to as a DM client.
According to the OMA DM standard, a DM tree which refers to items for managing a client is stored in a client, and a server performs a client management through such a DM tree. However, a conventional OMA DM merely specifies a normal authentication process between a server and a client without specifying the protection of a DM tree.
In particular, such a DM tree is prone to unfavorable changes by a client's unauthorized code manipulations or mistakes. Unfortunately, this may often cause a serious problem in DM functions for a remote client management.